IF GRACE IS THE BASE....AND IT IS! 

QUESTION:

If you have money to help the Lazarus' of the world and you don't, are you going to Hell?

Luke 16:19-31

The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 ‘There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” 25But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” 27He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— 28for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” 29Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” 30He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” 31He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” ’
Notice that Jesus doesn’t start this parable with the phrase, “The kingdom of God is like…”. I note that because having not done so, I don’t think that Jesus means this to be a picture of what it is like to live in the reign of God, now or eternally. Rather, I think it is meant to show that no matter how hard we try to “enter the kingdom of heaven by force”, we cannot. If we think that we can knock on the door of heaven and pound our way in with a battering ram of good works, we are wrong.

It was believed in Jesus’ day that wealth was a sign of God’s favor for a righteous life, and poverty was a sign of living in sin. In other words, the wealthier you were, if you were a devout Jew, the more you could be assured that you were doing God’s will….at least that is what people thought. (Not too far from what some Christian preachers preach today….”Do right and God will bless you.”) In this parable, we don’t know why the rich man wound up in eternal torment, but we do know this: his money didn’t help him. It was not, as he had thought, a sign of God’s love for his righteousness, and as he sat there in Hades, he discovered that the money that he had did him no good. Although Jesus doesn’t put these words in his mouth, we can hear him saying to Abraham, “What’s the deal? Don’t you know who I was? I was a rich man who lived a devout life. There must be a mistake. What am I doing here? And what is Lazarus doing there? Check your books and you’ll find out that I deserve to be up there!”

I don’t think that this is a parable telling us that we who have money need to take care of the Lazarus’ of the world (as true as that may be because Jesus who is rich in mercy has taken care of us, poor sinners), and our relationship with God, temporally or eternally is dependent upon our doing so. Rather, it refutes the idea, an idea that the Pharisees carried, that living a righteous life, following all the rules to be good people of God, will land us in the arms of God.

The only thing that lands us in the arms of God is when God jumps into the cesspools of our lives, whether they be thick with human waste or like a clear mountain pond laced with deadly bacteria, and pulls us out. I tell a parable of my own making about going to a restaurant and being presented with a glass of water with mouse turds floating on the top. The one to whom it was presented said to the server, “Don’t you see the mouseturds in this glass?” Agreeing that they are there, she sticks her hand in the water and cups most of the turds and pulls them out of the water and sets the glass back down. Amazed, the diner says to the server, “There are still mouseturds in this water.” “So sorry,” she responds and then carefully removes the remaining turds and sets the glass down in front of the diner. Almost enraged, the diner says, “I can’t drink that, there were mouseturds in that water!” With a huff, the server pours the water into a different glass, takes her pitcher and refills the original glass with clean water, and says, “Here, Sir, a glass of clean water. The diner says, “I can’t drink that water, there were mouseturds in that glass!” So, the server dumps the glass out, spits in it cleans it with her shirtsleeve, and says, “Here, sir, a glass of clean water.” “But you spit in it!” Finally, she calls for help, and from the back room comes a dishwasher with a bucket of boiling water. The dishwasher squirts some soap in the glass, wipes it with a cloth, and rinses it in the boiling water. “Here,” he says, “a glass of clean water.”

The point of my parable and Jesus’ parable is that we cannot “force” our way into God’s grace, no matter how hard we try. But God takes filthy glasses of water, filthy sinners, and makes them worthy to be in God’s presence, temporally and eternally. Neither Lazarus nor the rich man deserved to be with God, and neither do we. Yet by the power of grace, God…God… gathers us into his “bossom”.

Interestingly enough, there is a story of a real man named Lazarus in the Bible who Jesus raised from the dead after being in the tomb for four days. Apparently that wonderous event didn’t change the minds of many people, just as Jesus said it wouldn’t in this parable. Hopefully, Jesus must have thought, that this parable just might open the eyes of people to trust in a God who jumps into the cesspools of their lives, instead of a God whose love can be bought, which it cannot be.